Archive for the ‘Court Highlights’ Category

It’s been over a year since I last reported the court highlights. So much we have missed and everyone is dying to know. So here we go, I will start reporting them again! I will start slowly this week with only a couple of highlights. A Friday partygoer from Smokerise (?) brought a college buddy to the party. They rekindled at a wedding in Massachusetts and figured why not play tennis together again. They were quite a blast, bringing smiles to those on and off the court…

There’s a sub group within our group. It started out with 2 friends from Englewood who met up 3 summers ago and started playing together at the parties ever since. Like the “Wizard of Oz” last fall they picked up members along the way: player from Jersey City, then another also from Jersey City and finally one more from West Orange. The 5 play together, go out together and some of them even travel together. Tonight 3 more, from Hoboekn, Secaucus and West New York joined them and decided to stay on the same 2 courts for the rest of the evening. They said it was a lot of fun!

A player from Edgewater finally found sometime to play tonight – “…. my newborn baby absorbed pretty much all my tennis and sleeping hours. I am ready to continue my sleepless nights on Saturday, but this time joining your tennis event.” I put this young dad to play 2 hours of singles and he still had enough energy to play more, sleep or no sleep…

My sign-off “Look forward to seeing old and new friends” rings true. This and last week two old-timers attended, only to be joined by 3 other friends from 15-20 years ago. When two players from Ramsey arrived and saw their friends from Franklin Lakes and Wayne, they were quite surprised. An hour or two later a regular on the DL (disabled list) stopped by to say hello, as he can’t seem to stay away from the courts. He was also very surprised to see everyone in their old group here, one big unintended but happy reunion.

Here’s a picture of something to remind us what mother nature has impressed upon us this winter, lots of snow. One player was finally able to overcome the stubborn snow with the help of a shovel and warm weather 2 weeks ago…

On Friday night I paired up co-workers from Morris Plains and Wharton to play with two brothers from Garfield. I told them that whatever they did wrong to the Garfield player, his older brother will take care of them good on the court. The player from Leonia clarified it for me – “It’s called ‘Gotcha!’ tennis.” I’m sure it was a fun hour.

There were many two-timers, people who play twice a week, this week. A Thursday player from Cliffside Park also played Wednesday. Then Wednesday players wanted to play Thursday as well. Last Friday a player from Teaneck came today, making him a two-timer as well. I thought it was the holiday but Dwight said it was probably the snow and ice thawing out in the heat wave…

It sure has been a fun week working around mother nature, who kept us guessing as to which day to dodge the storms. Those Tennis Buffs with reliable wheels roughed it out and made it all the nights of tennis, though we had a slight change to the schedule when the Saturday party was detoured to Fairfield Racquet Club. It reminded me of 2 years ago when Sandy landed our Saturday parties at Fairfield and Tiger for most of the winter that year.

I’m long overdue and people want to know what’s been happening! While I don’t have details, I would like to share a few thoughts. A few things that speak volume about this group: Players come from as near as a 2-minute walking distance and as far as an hour drive, not to mention tolls across the Hudson River. There are many newcomers and very old-timers that have started playing in the group…

I normally don’t mention names of players in the newsletters but this time it’s almost necessary. Two regulars by the name of Dave couldn’t make it this week. However, 2 more Dave’s took their spot, making for a total of 4 Dave’s tonight. Had the weekly regulars been able to come, it would have been 6 Dave’s…